The famous king (Βασιλεύς) of ancient Macedonia and father of Alexander the Great, Philip II was born in 383/82 BC. He was son of the king Amyntas III and queen Eurydice. His brothers were Alexander II, Perdiccas III and Eurynoe, while he had also 3 half brothers, the sons of Gygaea,  namely Menelaus, Arrhidaeus and Archelaus. [1]

Early Life

In 368 BC when his elder brother Alexander II allied himself with Thebans, Philip was taken as a hostage in Thebes where he stayed for about 3 years.  In Thebes as Justin attests, “Philip was given fine opportunities of improving his extraordinary abilities; for being kept as a hostage at Thebes three years, he received the first rudiments of education in a city distinguished for strictness of discipline in the house of Epaminondas, an eminent philosopher, as well as commander.” [2]

His Reign

 After his brother Perdiccas, the King of Macedon,  was killed in the battle against Illyrians along with 4,000 Macedonians, Philip returned to Macedon either as a king or as a regent to his young nephew Amyntas. Based on his experiences gained close to Epaminondas in Thebes, Philip made many innovations in Macedonian army by bringing discipline, better training and new equipment like the introduction of Sarissa [3]. This way he created the famous “Macedonian Phalanx“. At the beginning of his reign he dealt with many difficult situations. On one hand he managed to get rid of the internal threats to his kingdom, namely his 3 half brothers and the pretender Argaeus, supported by Atheneans. Afterwards in 358 BC he defeated in battle the Illyrians of Bardyllis while he sealed the peace-treaty with Illyrians by marrying Audate, daughter of Bardyllis.

In a string of successful campaigns, he managed to reach as far as Thrace and took under his own control both the gold mines of Mt Pangaion, as well as the silver mines in Thrace. Next he turned on the South and intervened in the third Sacred war, against the Phocians. Unexpectedly Philip met his two first loses in the background from the Phocian leader Onormachus who introduced the use of catapults in the battlefield. However he succeeded in defeating them and Onormachus met a tragic end in his life. Now Philip took under his own control Thessaly. He took two wives from Thessaly, Philine of Larissa and later Nikesipolis. His alliance with Epirus resulted to marry with Olympias, a Molossian princess who would be destined to be the mother of one of the most famous persons of history, Alexander the Great.

The Athenean orator and leader of Anti-Macedonian party of Athens, Demosthenes tried to cause a stir of Atheneans and other Southern Greeks against Philip firstly with his “Olynthiacs”. It was at the time Philip turned against Olynthians, Athens’ allies in the area, and in 348 BC he attacked his former ally Olynthus and destroyed it on the grounds they have given refuge to two of his half-brothers, the pretenders of the thone of Macedon. At the time Isocrates urged him on his letters to Philip, to unite Greeks against Persians.

His last years

In 338 BC Philip and his allies defeated in the battle of Chaeronea the alliance of Athens and Thebes. With this battle he asserted his authority in Greece and created the League of Corinth, where he was elected as “Hegemon” by the rest of Greeks. The Greeks, except Spartans, were finally united against an old common enemy, the Persian empire. However Philip was not destined to be the one who will lead the Pan-Hellenic campaign against Achaemenids since in 336 BC, Philip was assasinated by Pausanias of Orestis, during the marriage of his daughter Cleopatra to Alexander of Epirus. He had reigned for about 25 years and according to the account of the historian Theopompus “Europe had never seen a man like Philip of Macedon“.

[1] Justin 7.4.5

[2] Justin 7. 5.1

[3] Diod. 16.3.1

A couple of days ago i read an article in the website Livius.org related to the history of ancient Macedonia.  The article is written by Jona Lendering, the owner of the website and admittedly he tries to give a neutral perspective, mainly due to the connection of the issue with modern politics. However his apparent neutrality is seriously hindered by some blatant inconsistencies the author commits. The purpose of this article is to contest Jona Lendering’s questionable claims about the ancient Macedonian language.

Claim:

However, there is some room for doubt. To start with, there are also Macedonian names that have no Greek parallel (Arridaeus or Sabattaras).

 Arridaeus (Gr: Αρριδαίος)

According to the account of the linguist Sakalis (source: ‘He Hellenike Tautotita ton arhaion Makedonon”

1. A citizen of the Greek island Kos (ii BC BCH 86 (1962) P. 275 no4,5)

2. Greek oikonomos of Laodike, ex-wife of Antiochus B’, king of the Seleukid kingdom.

Etymology: Derives from the greek word ‘Ari’ (An. Gr:άρι, Tr: much) + the adject. ‘Daios’ (An. Gr: Δάιος, Tr: frightening)

Therefore the claim “Arridaeus has no Greek paralel” is false.

Sabattaras (Gr: Σαβαττάρας)

The name appears in Inscription 269 (Second edition of  Sylloge dated to 300 BCE) referring to the the ‘proxenia‘ of Machatas, son of Sabattaras, originating from the Macedonian city Europos.

For starters, Machatas is a Greek name and most particularly its the Doric form of “Machetes” (Gr: Μαχητής, Tr: ‘Fighter‘)

Sabattaras appears to be an obscure case, in relation to the name’s origins but most likely it may be Thracian.

Points of interest:

-The root “Sabat” may be related to that of Sabazios, a Thraco- Phrygian god.

- The suffix “taras” may be appears to be Thracian, in the form of “Kotyotaras“.

- We should not forget that the Macedonians expanded from Makedonia (Pieria, Emathia) to regions populated by Thracians, after all and in essence Thrace has been incoporated into Macedonian kingdom much earlier than the date given. 

- The fact that Sabattaras is a SINGLE case, contrary to Arridaeus which appears to be somewhat common name in ancient Macedon, points out its the tiny EXCEPTION of the general rule which explicitely proves ancient Macedonians had Greek names. Rare cases of foreign names in Ancient Greek world were always found, even in Athens.  Thucydides‘ father bore the name Olorus, which is a Thracian one. It doesnt mean anyway we should start doubting the Greekness of Atheneans.

Claim:

In the second place, in many semi-literate societies, there is a difference between the spoken and the written language. It would not be without parallel if a Macedonian, when he wanted to make an official statement, preferred decent Greek instead of his native tongue. (Cf. the altars of the goddess Nehalennia, which were all written in Latin, a language that was almost certainly not spoken by the people who erected them.)

True to a certain point. However the crux of the matter is in these semi-illiterate societies used their native tongue in:1. their own names
2. in their toponymies.

Ancient Macedonians used in both of these options Greek names so the assumption is at least clumsy. Moreover from a rational point of view, a migrating people dont go around renaming existing toponymies in someone else’s language. They obviously rename them into their own. The original Ancient Macedonians renamed Phrygian toponymies into Greek during their migration. This alone proves they already were Greek-Speaking so the “Hellenization theory” unfortunately  falls apart. During 8th Century BC It would be quite absurb, Macedonians to rename toponymies into:

(i) Not their own language
(ii) A language they didnt…understand.

Claim:

Thirdly, many historical sources are written in Greek, and it was a common practice among Greek historians to hellenize foreign names. For example, the name of the powerful first king of the Persian empire, Kuruš, ought to be transcribed as Kourous or Kouroux in Greek, but became Kyros, because this looks like a Greek word (”Mr. Almighty”). The name that is rendered as Alexandros, which has a perfect Greek etymology, may in fact represent something like Alaxandus, which is not Greek.

Greeks indeed had a tedency to regularize foreign names to sound better in Greek. Examples are:

- The name Artaxerxes is the regularization of the original Persian name Artakhshathra.

- The name Xerxes is the regularization of the original Persian name Khshayarsha.

- The name Darius from the regularization of the old Persian name Dârayawuð.

Or even the name of the famous Indian founder of the Mauryan empire Chandragupta was regularised from Greeks into Sandracottus.

The vast majority of these foreign names have no meaning in Greek. From the other hand All Macedonian names like Alexandros and Phillipos are completely meaningful in greek in their original forms therefore there was no need anyone to regularize them. In relation to the name’s “Alexandros” usage, the first evidenced use of the name in history, comes from the Mycenean Greeks, in the female form “Alexandra“.  In reality the name Alexadros was COMMON in the Greek world prior to the establishment of Macedonian kingdom. Furthermore this claim is easily refuted alone by the fact that NONE of the Persian names who were regularized to sound better in Greek, is found in the Greek world. You wont find any Greek of classical ages called….Xerxes, or Darius, or any female called Sisygambis. On the contrary, the vast majority of ancient Macedonian names is COMMON in the Greek world. Philippos, Alexandros, Pausanias, etc are extensively used among Greeks. In reality the argument of Jona Lendering proves the exact opposite of his claim.

For example, there is evidence that Greeks were unable to understand people who were makedonizein, “speaking Macedonian”. The Macedonian king Alexander the Great was not understood by the Greeks when he shouted an order in his native tongue and the Greek commander Eumenes needed a translator to address the soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx.

Firstly Makedonizein could be a i) a dialect/language, ii) simply a mode of speech.

There isnt any clear reference from ancient sources that we could claim safely Greeks couldnt understand the ancient Macedonian native tongue. On the contrary there are references which proves the opposite.

If we follow this logic then by reading the following quote by [Thucydides (3-112)]